When it comes to punctuality, Mother Earth is late every year. That’s because it takes the earth 365 days 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to complete her orbit of the sun. To ensure continued harmony between Father Time and Mother Earth, the 12-month calendar gets an extra day – Leap Day – every four years on Feb. 29 to account for our planets slower pace.
What would you do with an extra day? To find out, Teen V spoke with local residents about their plans for this special day.
A bewildering number of services let computer and smart-phone users store and share files in the Internets cloud. But one file-hosting service in particular has evoked the kind of devotion ordinarily accorded social-networking services or beloved hardware manufacturers: Dropbox, the product of a startup founded in 2007 by MIT computer science students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. The service lets people use almost any computing device to store files in folders in the cloud as thoughtlessly as they store files in folders in their devices memory. Achieving that simplicity of use—something Houston calls an illusion—is very difficult, because it forces the company to wrestle with all the variants of the major operating systems, four Internet browsers, and any number of network file systems. No other service supports so many different systems. More than 50 million people around the world have been beguiled by Dropbox, which is free to many users. The
It is an irony of technology that the deeper it sinks into everyday life, the more remote it can come to seem. When motor cars were a rarity, early drivers had to crank up their engines, but today we can cruise without the faintest concern about what’s happening under the bonnet – until something goes wrong. A generation ago computer users had to type commands in technical syntax to achieve the simplest things; nowadays a finger can press on a screen and open an app to do just about anything.
Easier computing makes for an easier life, but it could leave the next generation both more dependent on and more clueless about the microchip. The Raspberry Pi – the low-cost computer that went on sale yesterday, and could soon break into schools – responds to this prospect. It is sold as a few uncased components bolted on to a credit-card-sized board, so we really are talking back to basics, though not quite back to Basic: the clock speed would put any 1980s machine to shame. But the cohort who learned the programming craft back then are the project’s greatest enthusiasts. They’
A fire aboard a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus that sent six students and their driver scurrying to safety has prompted N.C. officials to instruct all school districts across the state to inspect their buses.
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction said officials believe the school bus blaze was caused by worn wire coverings an issue that might be found on Thomas Built Buses received by schools about 13 years ago.
On Feb. 8, bus driver Lindora Richardson was driving students home from Chantilly Montessori School when she noticed a burning smell and stopped the bus. Smoke soon began pouring from the front of bus No. 295 as Richardson moved the students off the bus, lowering some out the emergency back door.
The fire spread quickly, sending flames and thick, black smoke into the air. No one was injured, and Richardson was hailed as a hero.
Last week, an inspector from Thomas Built and an independent fire inspector examined the charred bus a Freightliner FS-65 with a Thomas Built Buses body built in 1999.
Many business schools, including Stanford, Harvard, and Wharton, accept either the GMAT or the GRE. Which one should you take?
The main thing to determine is this: would you have a significant scoring advantage on one test versus the other?
The general consensus is that GRE math is easier than GMAT math. If math is a weakness for you, then put a “plus” in the GRE column. Further, in June of 2012, the GMAT will add a new section called Integrated Reasoning. This section will combine math and logic – yet another reason to take the GRE if quant is your weaker area.
Both tests are generally similar in verbal difficulty, but they emphasize different skills. Both test reading comprehension and logical reasoning about equally. For the remaining test questions, the GMAT emphasizes grammar while the GRE emphasizes vocabulary. Which is more of a strength for you?
Here’s how you can tell for sure: take a practice GMAT and a practice GRE. Most companies allow people to sign up for one free test. Make sur
